After years of keeping silent, I finally started talking about GC ideas to a couple of people in my life. The reception was mixed. The good news is that so far people have been willing to listen and seem to understand the points I am making and that I am not necessarily bigoted.
The bad news is that I can tell these people (older, blue state Democrats) have really bought into gender ideology more than I had expected. I did not realize just how mainstream transgenderism had become. One person I spoke to referred to Rachel Levine as "she" (not too surprising) and said that Rand Paul's questions about the age of consent for children appeared to her as a bigoted attack on Levine and transgender people instead of a valid point that remained unanswered.
Some of the ideas I raised they had not been exposed to at all yet, which is not surprising. They were under the impression that the only questions and criticisms being made were borne of bigotry by conservatives. One person suggested that my criticisms were just a mindless repetition of bigoted conservative conspiracy theories and compared me to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conservative legislator who put up a sign saying that male and female are the only genders. It was clear that he is deep in progressive groupthink and at this point cannot accept that there could be any reason but bigotry to disagree with the Equality Act. The other person seemed more receptive and said they would raise these points with LGBT people she knows.
I feel a little discouraged because I know what little headway I made with them will be quickly cancelled out by mainstream TRA voices. No matter how compelling my arguments, at the end of the day they are going to ask, if the Equality Act is really the problem she says it is, why aren't any well-known women's and gay groups or other civil rights organizations speaking out against it? I tried to explain the toxic environment that has risen up around this issue and the censorship that has taken place, but it really does come off sounding like a conspiracy theory if you are used to trusting mainstream organizations.
I am going to keep trying, though, if only so people can finally hear some criticism that is not coming from the right wing.
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